SNOOK SWIMBAIT SMACKDOWN

Inearly summer, Miami angler Chris Hueston heads to the Everglades in search of huge Snook. Hueston puts a lot of faith in the LIVETARGET Scaled Sardine Swimbait.

“I take that lure with me anywhere I go,” Hueston proudly states. “If I don’t have at least half a dozen, I’ll find some more before I go out.

From Louisiana to Texas, to Jacksonville, to my home waters in South Florida, that lure dominates.

“If I had one lure to take with me anywhere in Florida, it would be the 3-1/2-inch, 1-ounce LIVETARGET Scaled Sardine swimbait. It’s the perfect size unless the baitfish are really large, then I’ll use the 4-inch, 1-ounce size.”

Hueston said he finds warm-season snook along deep mangrove edges, points, passes, and Gulf of Mexico beaches — the key ingredient — water flow.

“There’s gotta be current,” Hueston stated. “I like outside points or passes, flow-throughs, jetties, and oyster bars.”

This requirement is simple — feeding opportunities. Snook are sight feeders, so the more baitfish, shrimp, and crabs move through the target zone, the more active these predators become.

“I like the first hour of the falling tide until the last hour of the outgoing cycle and then the same (in reverse) with the incoming tide,” Hueston said.

“You have about a 4-hour window on the outgoing and another 4-hour window on the incoming, so in a full day, you’ll have 8 hours of (optimum water movement).”

“This is an easy bait to fish, even in windy conditions,” Hueston said. “Youcast it out, slowly retrieve it and let that oscillator tail do all the work for you.

“From a novice to a pro, you take someone out and give them this bait, and they find it’s easy to catch fish, so they gain a lot of confidence.”

Often, Hueston will throw his swimbait near a mangrove shoreline and watch snook run out and flash on it. When this aggressive display fails to connect, he’ll throw his bait up to the mangrove edge, dead stick it and let it fall. On the descent, he said, that active tail motion typically triggers the fish to eat what they mistake for wounded prey.

For optimal bite response, Hueston offers this advice: “When you get hit, wait for a second, then slow roll the hook set, instead of immediately jerking the bait. Feel the bite, let him get it, then set the hook.